State unemployment rate drops to 5.3 percent

Updated 6:36 pm, Thursday, September 17, 2015

Photo: Tim Guzda /Staff Graphic

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Connecticut added 3,200 jobs in August, the fourth monthly increase in a row, the state Department of Labor figures said Thursday. The state unemployment rate, now at 5.3 percent, has not been this low since May 2008. less

Connecticut added 3,200 jobs in August, the fourth monthly increase in a row, the state Department of Labor figures said Thursday. The state unemployment rate, now at 5.3 percent, has not been this low since ... more

Photo: Tim Guzda /Staff Graphic

State unemployment rate drops to 5.3 percent

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Connecticut labor officials reported another month of strong employment gains in August, having added 3,200 jobs —the biggest increase for that month in a decade.

The new jobs brought the unemployment rate down to 5.3 percent from 5.4 percent in July. The state jobless rate has not been this low since May 2008.

The increase puts Connecticut in line with the rest of the country in terms of employment growth during the past year, but the state continues to lag in overall job gains since the Great Recession.

“The percentage change in the year-over-year jobs figure is only a tenth of point behind the rest of the country, and that’s really good news,” said Nick Perna, a local economist who serves as an adviser to Webster Bank. “We are keeping up with the rest of the country in terms of growth.”

Politicians hailed the jobs report as affirmation of programs put into place last year that they say are starting to bear fruit.

“We made a lot of long-term investments and those long-term investments didn’t put people back to work in great numbers overnight, but now we’re seeing, I think, the results of those longer-term investments,” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Thursday. “A lot of housing, a lot of work with precision manufacturing, a lot of work with bio-science. All of those investments had to be made before people were actually employed. Now they are employed and becoming employed and I think these are very positive numbers.”

And while the growth has certainly been positive during the past 12 months, Perna noted that the state continues to lag behind the rest of the United States in terms of jobs recovered since the recession. While the rest of the country has regained all of the jobs lost, Connecticut has so far recovered 88 percent of jobs lost during the downturn, according to the labor department report released Thursday.

“I believe that’s a reflection of the 2011 and 2012 period, when the state lagged considerably behind the rest of the country in terms of job creation,” he said. “It has a lot to do with the budget measures undertaken at the time including the state’s largest tax increase in history combined with spending cuts. In terms of current momentum, however, we are in line with the rest of the country.”

The U.S. unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in August while year over year job growth stood at 2.2 percent. Connecticut’s employment growth during the same period was 2.1 percent, according to the report.

Sector winners and losers

The education and health services sector, which added 2,500 jobs, led the state’s job gains last month, followed by local government, with 1,300 jobs, and trade, transportation and utilities, which added 1,000 jobs.

Leisure and hospitality was the largest of the four declining industry sectors in August, followed by financial activities, construction, and professional and business services.

Connecticut has now recovered 104,900 positions, or 88 percent, of those lost between March 2008 and February 2010. The private sector has regained 98 percent of the jobs lost during the downturn. The state needs to add an additional 14,100 jobs to reach full employment.

The statewide private-sector workweek averaged 33.9 hours in August, up one-tenth of an hour from the same month a year ago. Average hourly earnings at $29.24 were up $1.26 from the August 2014 estimate.